And a retreat so distant, as may show
No thoughts of a return, when once I go.
Give me a country, how remote so e'er,
Where happiness a modʼrate rate does bear,
Where poverty itself in plenty flows,
And all the solid use of riches knows.

The ground about the house maintains it there,
The house maintains the ground about it here.
Here even hunger's dear; and a full board
Devours the vital substance of the lord.
The land itself does there the feast bestow,
The land itself must here to market go.

Three or four suits one winter here does waste,
One suit does there three or four winters last.
Here every frugal man must oft be cold,
And little luke-warm fires are to you sold.
There fire's an element, as cheap and free,
Almost as any of the other three.

Stay you then here, and live among the great,
Attend their sports, and at their tables eat.
When all the bounties here of men you score,
The place's bounty there shall give me more.

He might have said, of friends, as his original does :

But then the application would have been more pointed and satirical than he wished it to be. He therefore drops the idea of friends, and delicately substitutes men.

EPITAPHIUM VIVI AUCTORIS.

IC, o viator, sub lare parvulo
Couleius hîc est conditus, hic jacet;
Defunctus humani laboris

Sorte, supervacuâque vitâ.

7 The application is the juster and prettier, because of the poet's singular passion for gardens and flowers (on which subject he had written a Latin poem in six books); and then according to the poetical creed,

vivo quæ cura

-eadem sequitur tellure repôstum.

VIRG. En. vi. 564.

EPITAPH ON THE LIVING AUTHOR.

1.

ERE, stranger, in this humble nest,
Here, Cowley sleeps; here lies,
Scap'd all the toils, that life molest,
And its superfluous joys.

2.

Here, in no sordid poverty,

And no inglorious ease,

He braves the world, and can defy

Its frowns and flatteries.

3.

The little earth, he asks, survey:

Is he not dead, indeed?

"Light lye that earth," good stranger, pray, "Nor thorn upon it breed!”

4.

With flow'rs, fit emblem of his fame,

Compass your poet round;

With flow'rs of ev'ry fragrant name
Be his warm ashes crown'd!

K

A DISCOURSE, BY WAY OF VISION, CON

CERNING THE GOVERNMENT

OF OLIVER CROMWELL.1

T was the funeral day of the late man who made himself to be called protector. And though I bore but little affection, either to

the memory of him, or to the trouble and folly of all public pageantry, yet I was forced, by the importunity of my company, to go along with them, and be a spectator of that solemnity, the expectation of which had been so great, that it was said to have brought some very curious persons (and no doubt singular virtuosos) as far as from the Mount in Cornwall, and from the Orcades. I found there had been much more cost bestowed than either the dead man, or indeed death itself, could deserve. There was a mighty train of black assistants, among which, too, divers princes in the persons of their ambassadors (being infinitely afflicted for the loss of their brother) were pleased to attend; the hearse was magnificent, the idol crowned, and (not

This is the best of our author's prose works. The subject which he had much at heart, raised his genius. There is something very noble, and almost poetical, in the plan of this vision; and a warm vein of eloquence runs quite through it.

to mention all other ceremonies which are practised at royal interments, and therefore by no means could be omitted here) the vast multitude of spectators made up, as it uses to do, no small part of the spectacle itself. But yet, I know not how, the whole was so managed, that, methought, it somewhat represented the life of him for whom it was made; much noise, much tumult, much expense, much magnificence, much vain-glory; briefly a great show; and yet, after all this, but an ill sight. At last (for it seemed long to me, and, like his short reign too, very tedious) the whole scene passed by; and I retired back to my chamber, weary, and I think more melancholy than any of the mourners; where I began to reflect on the whole life of this prodigious man: and sometimes I was filled with horror and detestation of his actions, and sometimes I inclined a little to reverence and admiration of his courage, conduct, and success; till, by these different motions and agitations of mind, rocked, as it were, asleep, I fell at last into this vision; or if you please to call it but a dream, I shall not take it ill, because the father of poets tells us, even dreams, too, are from God.

But sure it was no dream; for I was suddenly transported afar off (whether in the body, or out of the body, like St. Paul,2 I know not) and found myself on the top of that famous hill in the island Mona, which has the prospect of three great, and not-long-since most happy, kingdoms. As soon as ever I looked on them, the not-long-since struck upon my memory, and called forth the sad representation of all the sins, and all the miseries, that had overwhelmed them these twenty years.

2 Very injudicious, on such an occasion, to use the language of St. Paul, says Bishop Hurd.